The latest consumer price index (CPI) report released on Wednesday showed that the average cost of basic commodities for Americans rose by 0.6% from July to August, and had increased by 3.7% since August of last year.
Other commodities tracked by the BLS saw their prices increase very modestly by comparison, with the largest being a 2% hike in transportation costs - likely following the trend in fuel prices.
Overall, pundits quoted in US media cast the inflation increase as a hiccup in a downward trend that was soon to resume.
“This should just be a temporary interruption of the downward trend,” Andrew Hunter, deputy chief US economist at Capital Economics, told one outlet.
“Broadly, we’re already seeing pretty clear signs the situation is approaching normal again,” he added.
“It’s a little hot, but I don’t think it’s an inflection point,” said Skanda Amarnath, executive director of the left-leaning think tank Employ America. “It’s information that tells you the process is going to take some time. Don’t expect inflation to fall overnight.”
With the Federal Reserve set to meet next week for its first time since July, there’s still the potential for the Open Market Committee to further increase interest rates in response to the trend. A standard tool in capitalist fiscal policy, raising interest rates is intended to slow down investment and decrease inflation, but carries with it the risk of increasing unemployment or even triggering a recession.
However, alongside the slight inflation increases have been persistent job growth and a modest increase in unemployment over the last two months as well, despite federal interest rates being at their highest in decades.
Inflation was noted as a major cause behind the trend revealed in a US Census Bureau poverty report released earlier this week.
In 2022, child poverty in the US more than doubled and overall poverty increased nearly as much. While the worst of the current inflation trend occurred that year before being brought under control by the Fed, 2022 was also the first year after the Biden administration allowed nearly all of the numerous pandemic-era economic benefit programs to expire.
Those programs were aimed at helping tens of millions of Americans cast out of work by the pandemic and its associated lockdowns and economic disruptions, and were credited with dramatically decreasing child poverty and hunger rates in the US.